SATA Air Azores

Not Verified | Spent 12 hours in airport with minimal information as flight cancelled then rebooked then cancelled again. Gate area is like a third world airport with no accurate information and no seating with many sitting in the floor. Would never visit Azores again until they improve their Airline.

✅ Trip Verified | Another really good experience. First leg - Madeira to Ponta Delgada flight on a Q400 turboprop. Flight left early and arrived early. Polite check in staff in Madeira checked both our carry on and checked luggage all the way to Toronto. OK snack and non alcoholic beverage service on a 2 hour flight. Second leg - Ponta Delgada to Toronto on an Airbus. On time departure and arrival. Good unique Portuguese meal (pasta with tuna, bacon and chorizo), two passes of the beverage cart. Both flights had courteous and professional cabin crew for planes that were full, lots of announcements from the flight deck about possible turbulence. A better entertainment system would have been welcome for the second 6 hour flight.

Not Verified |   On 26.10.2023, our flight arrived at its destination with a delay of almost 4 hours. In the event of such inconvenience, they are liable to pay compensation under EU law. I have sent the complaints via their complaint form on their website right after our flight, which they have recorded based on the automatic confirmation emails. The status of the complaints after more than 3 months: "Received/In analysis". The current status of the complaint after 5 months: "Your process is in an unknown state". There is no feedback and no assistance from their side even after two phone calls!

✅ Trip Verified |  This is by far the worst airline I have ever dealt with. They changed my flight without any notification whatsoever, to a schedule that guaranteed missing the added connection. I contacted them several times to discuss this matter and they were extremely rude and impatient. They told me they could do nothing to change my flight to something else even though there were other available flights on the same day and I booked the flight through their website, not a 3rd party. They hung up on me upon waiting on hold for 1 hour+ on several occasions. They finally agreed to refund my flight (still after receiving zero notification my flight had been changed and ultimately canceled) but assured me they could not send me any documentation that I would be refunded. The way these people conduct business is extremely unprofessional. I would advise anyone to book with a different airline under all circumstances.

✅ Trip Verified | Really good from start to finish. Fast and competent check in at Pearson Airport in Toronto. We requested and they agreed to check our carry-on luggage through to our final destination of Madeira. With December temperatures dropping, a quick de icing was done and we were on our way. Full flight. Surprisingly good airline food beef stew meal with generous pour of wine. Courteous onboard staff. Good announcements from the flight deck. On time arrival in the Azores. The second flight leg from PDL to FNC was an uneventful short 1 1/2 hour flight and a small sandwich with no alcoholic beverages was served. To summarize - safe, on time, good food, good staff and a great price. I have been flying this route for 10 years and have never had a serious problem. Whenever there have been winter weather issues in Canada or fog in the Azores, they have always held the connecting flight and the final delay has never exceeded 30 minutes.

✅ Trip Verified | The worst experience I ever had. They take extra bag without to have conditions to take than just to make money and leave the passengers bag behind, the customer service is horrible they just Don’t care about. I been 9 days without any clothes or basic needs. Is frustrated that way they treat customers!

Not Verified | They canceled my flight due to "Weather" after waiting in the airport for hours. They rebooked me early next day for 1000 flight. They canceled the flight again. They have us waiting around for 2 hours waiting to maybe get luggage and see about getting rescheduled for a later flight that day. I get to the counter and they schedule me for an 1800 flight for the next day. You serious? I had to pay to change and cancel my other flights to my final destination twice and now I have $1200 that's gone to nothing. I'll have to pay an additional $1100 to get to my final destination. Do not fly with SATA.

Not Verified | We will never fly with SATA Airlines again. Due to strong winds our flight was rescheduled several times, which had us wait at the airport for 10 hours before shortly before midnight, it was cancelled all together. There were no flights leaving all day, which meant there were so many people stuck at the airport and all of them had to find a hotel to spend the night suddenly, which made it hard to find something affordable and close by. We ended up spending two extra days at the island because flights on the next days were already fully booked. Talking to customer service in order to reschedule our flights was difficult and very frustrating. We had to pay for a hotel for two more nights, no car, spending a lot more money than we liked to. The two extra days cost us over 460 Euro for the hotel, taxi transfer to the airport, food, additional hygiene products, additional cost for parking at the airport back home. Immediately after we came back, I emailed all the receipts for everything in and that is where the next nightmare began. It is October now and I have not seen one cent back from SATA. It is a constant back and forth of arguing about the things that will be reimbursed. The refuse to pay for the second night at the hotel, they refuse to pay for the additional parking fees, they did not want to pay for one taxi transfer because the taxi driver was an older man and gave us a handwritten receipt missing the date. The customer service is rude, does not confirm received emails and takes forever to reply. Being stuck at an island for two days during storms without a car, missing work days, adjusting the pet sitting service, paying a lot of money out of pocket, spending hours on an overcrowded airport, absolutely ruining the recreational effect a vacation has, was not enough for SATA customer service. They have to argue with customers for over 5 months now to reimburse extra costs that were involuntarily created because of their bad organization.

Not Verified | Our flight from Ponta Delgada to Lisbon was delayed for hours, causing us to miss our connection in Lisbon to Brussels. They arranged another flight the next day. We did have to look for a hotel ourselves to spend the night. We were told that we could forward the costs of the hotel, dinner and breakfast. I did this immediately. It is now 3 months later and I have not seen a euro back. | Onze vlucht van Ponta Delgada naar Lissabon had uren vertraging waardoor we onze aansluiting in Lissabon naar Brussel misten. Ze regelden de volgende dag een nieuwe vlucht. Wel moesten we zelf op zoek naar een hotel om de nacht te overbruggen. Er werd gezegd dat we de kosten van het hotel, diner en ontbijt mochten doorsturen. Dit heb ik onmiddellijk gedaan. Ondertussen zijn we 3 maanden verder en heb ik nog geen euro teruggezien.

Not Verified | Flight cancelled. No response calling their customer service line. Operators do not know anything. No response through online chatbot. No response when a complaint filed through their official website (first there was an error and it did not work at all and later we were assigned a registration number but nothing happened afterwards). Then we messaged [email protected] and things started to move very slowly after a month. We have exchanged like 5 messages in total over the past 4 months, SATA even acknowledged our right for compensation, gave us two options to choose from either a bank transfer or a voucher, asked us to fill in and sign some compensation requests which we did instantly and since then they have gone quiet again. I don't know if we'll ever be refunded. Worst communication ever. I do not want to pay an administration fee to a travel company which would undergo the same process as I did. They deliberately avoid these request hoping people are not aware the EU laws or will just forget!